


Discount Avatar

by AllHailProHeroThirteen04102016



Series: Self-Indulgent Avatar Fanfics [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Isekai, Playing with Fanfic Tropes, Reincarnation, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25664782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllHailProHeroThirteen04102016/pseuds/AllHailProHeroThirteen04102016
Summary: The world was without its Avatar and conflict is scattered and spreading like a wildfire.Emi Lee didn't want to get involved with that, content in her "lazy" lifestyle as a non-bending, Fire Nation nobility. She didn't even mind the arranged marriage shtick because she's perfectly okay with an open relationship.That was until she noticed how much of an anomaly she actually was.
Relationships: Azula (Avatar) & Original Female Character(s), Zuko (Avatar) & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Self-Indulgent Avatar Fanfics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860883
Comments: 10
Kudos: 124





	1. Capable of Bending Multiple Elements, Royalty, Sibling of Main Characters

**Author's Note:**

> Time for something cringey!
> 
> This time, Emi Lee isn't Azula. Nah. She's the younger sister. Oh shit.
> 
> (Insert insensitive joke.)  
> Time to pull out manhwas written by women who never had a decent parent. (I'm kidding.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emi Lee is the third child of Lady Ursa and Lord Ozai. It was the spirits who decided her name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how some fanfics start with being in the womb then the whole birthing process?
> 
> Whelp, Imma use that for extra cringe!

Emi Lee was born with a weak body.

Azula would be counting its days until its impending death until it didn't happen.

The Fire Sages had claimed that the baby was _blessed_ by the spirits, which is primarily why the Fire Lord didn't kill the baby immediately.

Emi Lee was small with intelligent amber eyes and dark brown hair. Affectionate to all, and when she grows up, kind to all.

(Which brings the eldest child being relieved that he has a nice little sister but also alarmed that the two would be constantly pissing each other off.)

Zuko and Ursa would often scold Azula for bothering the baby so often, making it cry by either waking it up or by pinching and flicking at its delicate skin.

Her first words were _Thank you_ and _I love you_. The third one would be _Stop_ , while she'd try to smack away Azula's wandering hands, much to Ursa's amusement.

She's quick to learn to crawl, walk, run, write and read. She's slow to learn to speak though, not as verbally eloquent as her siblings but no less intelligent, but everyone sees it differently.

Her worth lessens once they realize that she may be capable of firebending, but it's too weak no matter how much practice. But she still had worth as a political pawn and soon enough she has plenty of suitors to choose from.

Emi doesn't know how to tell anyone that she's a bender, she knew she is, but fire didn't feel _right_ to her. The forms taught to her were too stiff and offensive. She feels that she's more suited to more fluid forms, she tells her instructors, but even the most agile forms were still not enough. And it's more difficult to train someone who bruises too easily and fatigues as quickly as she'd pick up the lessons.

So they move to weapkns training to make up for it. It's a ruse, of course, in the eyes of the Fire Lord nothing she does will make up for the fact she's so _weak_.

She's quick to get angry at Azula's taunts and she clings to her robes and yells to the world that she's going to be the best war strategist or even a spy for the next Lord, even if she can't bend!

_How would you, a princess, become a spy?_

_Nobody knows how I look like! Plus, who would think that a princess would do something like that? Nobody will figure it out 'cept 'Zula and Zuzu!_

_I doubt it,_ she scoffed, but a smiling on her lips.

Emi Lee wasn't someone who was used to hugs, but she hugs her mother, her brother, and her sister as much as possible. She'll add it with a kiss to the cheek, much to her older siblings' horror and her mother's delight. Tack it on with plenty of I love yous, to which there would be an unhesitant return of the phrase, or in Azula's case, a simple "I know" or "I swear that's the only phrase you don't botch up."

(Emily wasn't able to show her appreciation to her family as much as she should. Emi would not want to repeat that mistake.)

Emi would be five when Ursa leaves and she would be moved to a different building.

She misses Ursa. When she was still in the darkness, it had been her voice and the steady beat of her heart that comforted her in her loneliness. She listened attentively and memorized the orchestra of heartbeat and rush of blood in her veins.

She visits Azula during her breaks often, watching her bend fire until it was blue and every flex of her body a threat of inferno, watching her have intelligent debates with the teacher. Azula would later try to teach her some military strategies, which would be a way for her to show off her superiority and to spend time with her.

Sometimes she'll sneak to Zuko's room and, while he's licking his wounds, regale him with stories from another world. He'd try to listen, sometimes he'll be attentive, but there would be times when his eyes would be glazed over, with her voice as background noise. Sometimes she'll just be there, quiet, and they'll keep each other company.

Zuko would confess that Mother had come to his room to say goodbye, at which Emi Lee sighs at because _Mom, you're never subtle about your favoritism._

She'll teach him English, and he'll get frustrated but does well enough that they have their own secret language in simple phrases. She never got caught by guards.

At some point, Iroh noticed her, saying something about her aura being sad. She admits that with her mother missing and her siblings falling out, she's having a hard time trying to be happy enough for the three of them.

Emi practices breathing with Iroh, when she'd keep her body warm even in the coldest of tundras. At some point he teaches her some of his own moves, which remarkably suited her much better.

Her flames grow stronger.

It takes a while for all of her memories to trickle in.

And when it finally does, she wakes up in the dead of night, shaking and pale, feeling the phantom touch of death before life took her back.

She weeps.

"Zuko," poke, poke, "Zuko, _wake up!_ "

"Wha-" He nearly yelled before a pudgy hand smacked over his mouth. He grunts.

" _Shhhhh_. I need to tell you something."

He rolls over, groaning. "Just tell me in the morning."

"...there is no morning," she muttered. Her broken tone made him roll over to _look_ at her. In the light of the full moon, her normally happy, naive face looked haunted. Guilty. He sits up, worried now.

"What's wrong?"

The spirits have whispered and spoken to her, in her dreams, of the knowledge she possessed and her abilities will be abused like her siblings. She can't save anyone with how _young_ she was. No time to hone her body or talents, not enough time for her to grow old enough for a position handed to teenagers. But in that time period? She will be hurt.

Will she stay or will she save herself?

It's painful to think about people actually willing to throw children into the lion's den. She didn't want that.

She sighs and hugs him. Tightly. "I'm going to go somewhere far away." She firmly stated. _I'm selfish, I'm so selfish,_ she cried deep in her heart, as Zuko's embrace became tighter and he angrily tells her that she's not allowed to and _he won't let her._

"Things are going to be different now," she says, patting at the upper left of his forehead, his left eye, and left cheekbone. Thinking about the character Zuko she had conflicting feeling about back when she used to be seven and watching the cartoon with her siblings after school. Tried to put that image together with the Zuko she grew up with.

It's not a great picture.

"Father will do more horrible things. He's like Hera and you'll be his Hercules." She whispers, referencing to one of the stories she told him. "You'll go through a lot. Azula does as well. You'll encounter spirits and, one day, the Avatar. You'll be a great Fire Lord. Azula...does whatever, free, like she always wanted."

"How about you?"

"...I don't matter. " She finally says, truthful. "I know the future. But that's it. I can't interfere with it."

It's a fucking lie, and a way for her to justify leaving them alone with that monster. She honestly didn't care about some plot of a cartoon or even the damn war she'd hear constantly, that shaped what she knew about the world.

But she knew Azula and Zuko well enough that even if she'd give them the opportunity to, they will not leave. Out of pride, honor or duty, the kinds of things she couldn't give a shit about.

"You're just a kid. You can't run away."

"I'm blessed by the spirits. I'll survive."

"I'll tell the guards."

Emi Lee sneers at him, copying Zula's expression when she thinks someone said something ignorant. "You can try."

As for Azula, she tries to do the same, but there's more "I don't care, go ahead and die on the road" and she's more hurt than she lets on. "I'll tell Father. You'll be a disgrace and even if you run back, begging on your knees, he'll never allow you back in the Fire Nation, much less your inheritance."

"That's true. But Father never really cared about me." _Or you_ , she mentally added. "Let's meet up someday?"

"You're dead to me. Now leave before I change my mind." She declared, before going back to sleep, her back turned to the child.

"I love you, Zula. See you next time."

Of course, escaping wasn't going to be easy.

Years of experience and being more attuned to the voices of spirits allows her to dodge most pursuers, but there was a problem when you had a body that still got tired faster than the pursuers did.

They eventually get her surrounded, blood pumping theough their veins, throbbing under the shivering moonlight. Their armor shone silver, a sharp contrast to the red uniforms.

Spirits gather and whip up a cold wind. The whisper curls over her back, arm, wrist, and the moon's glow seemed to sharpen. Energy thrummed in the air and they direct her.

_How? How? What are you trying to tell me?_

"Princess Emi Lee, we implore you to surrender and return to--"

Something within her unlocks and power rushed through her.

 _Control_.

Panicking, under the blinding light of the full moon, Emi Lee bloodbends.

"Looks like baby sister is more ruthless than we gave her credit for." Azula chortles, not minding at all the way Zuko's teeth grind violently at the new loss.

"Shut up, Azula."

"She's a waterbender now, apparently. Used bottles containing water to distract people and everything but what's really interesting was how--"

"Stop it."

"--she made their hearts stop."

"Why don't you care?!"

She tsked. "Oh, Zuzu, don't you know?" Her eyes burn bright with a myriad of emotions he couldn't identify, but still empathize with.

"I care _very_ much."

On Azula's desk was a drawing of their entire family at the Ember Island. It's drawn with a careful hand, with careful strokes.

Azula and Zuko were imitating the play, with Zuko being the bad guy much to his dissatisfaction and Azula's childish glee. Ozai was looking at something beyond the two children. Ursa was beaming at them lovingly, as happy as she could be, holding a toddler, presumably their youngest, who was giving them a sleepy, curious stare. There was an odd way of coloring them, but it fits with how eccentric the artist herself was.

The girl couldn't bring herself to burn the pathetic piece of parchment.

Instead, Azula keeps it in her drawers, swearing that it'd never see the light of day.

Some days, she'll hear Zuko speaking in tongues that sound too articulated to be mere garbled nonsense. Some days, when Ozai was too harsh, she'd grab the paper, look at it and _wish_ , before becoming overcome with disgust for her weakness and shove it back in the drawer carefully.

(Is that how she sees them all?

How funny. While Mother thought Azula was a monster, Emi thought their _father_ was one. And that he didn't care about Azula.

Was that how it was? Is it because monsters desired power or was it because they were powerful?

Emi has always been weak, but unknowingly loved one anyway.)

A pillar of light pierces the heavens.

To a travelers, it's a bright star in the distance.

"Episode one!" One of them yells, excited. A few inch away from the child; that one's lost a few marbles, they say. "The Avatar is here!"

Crazy kid.

Zuko fails to capture the Avatar. For the nth time.

Not the first time, he wonders if he's been lied to.

He doesn't know the truth anymore.

Upon General Zhao's failure, she finally gets a mission to go outside. She's crown princess, firebending prodigy and will not be a failure like the other two.

Before she left, she tucks a folded piece of paper into one of her pockets.

While on the way to capturing Uncle and Zuzu, perhaps she could retrieve their wayward little sister as well.

Somewhere, a lone child exhales in relief at the moon returning, and with it, her bending.

 _So it has began_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have based Azula and OC's relationship off me and my sister. Yes, we piss each other off a lot. And I'm actually the sociopath of the pair.


	2. Mary Sue Effect: Friend for All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Route 1, where Emi Lee managed to avoid the cast as much as possible. Aka the boring chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case someone got bothered by the last chapter, there's nothing wrong to take a chance at getting out of a toxic situation.
> 
> Oh boy, I should be writing Existential Crisis (my first multichapter fanfic) but here I am! That chapter was getting too long but I'm trying to cover all the important stuff.

Emi Lee missed having her siblings.

In both lives, she was youngest of multiple. She's the one most pampered (previously) and the one held with disdain(now.) Instead of seven years, she's younger than the eldest by five. In both lives, the eldest sometimes look at her with envy and the middle looked at her like she had nothing to offer.

It was funny when she ran away, they thought she was the Avatar. She was used to running and they found a better priority.

Now she's just traveling around the world, learning the world beyond simply looking at maps and reading reports and anecdotes from soldiers who'd raze them all the same.

There was bitter censure at learning how war truly worked. Seeing the effects in person was different from listening to the censored version her tutors say or the vivid and brutal description of it by travelers.

She doesn't want to wonder how many children were orphaned or killed by Uncle Iroh.

It was a pity that people started including those below fifteen once there were too few adults left with any real authority. The Water Tribe might have a point in preserving their females, but they just amped up their chances of getting another genocide when none of them know how to fight.

(She moved to the Water Tribe once she spotted Ty Lee in her area. Yeah, no, she's not gonna try to join the Team Rocket: Fire Nation Squad Version.)

The tundras they lived at was complicated travelling through. It was easy to manipulate the snow out of the way, to use fire techniques (inspired by Avatar Roku's time with the Air Nomads) to keep warm, but when she's asleep she can't exactly do that while unconscious. So she had to be bundled up to preserve her energy in firebending while travelling, and having a fire while sleeping in an igloo she created.

She sold many of her possessions at this point. Silk and satin replaced by hemp and cotton replaced by wools and furs. The only silver on her person was a dagger cajoled out of Azula's hands after she stole it from Zuko, and Zuko didn't want it anymore. She learned to cook her food after paying a butcher back at the Earth Kingdom to teach her to cut her meat, asked for mothers to let her observe their cooking and slept at the feet of the graveyard of the Air Nomads.

(The Fire Nation had technologies similar to industrial era at this point. She didn't know that other countries don't use appliances that can balance, _control_ fire on their own.)

The spirits are still there, a whisper of something, a language she still barely understood when the subtle language still sounded like tongues for her.

She learned earthbending from a soldier's child.

She could probably learn airbending from Aang.

While Zuko was chasing Aang, and Azula was chasing Zuko, Emi Lee was simply cleaning up the mess they left behind. While it's nice that Zuko is trying to live normally at the Dragon Tea Shop _(Iroh, why? You're just asking to be found.)_ she's not going to stay anywhere near Ba Sing Se when it's oppressed as hell.

(She wanted to see them.

She wants to see Azula and Zuko again, but she knows she'll get reported. But now with him going _native_ of all things, it's a different story.)

Perhaps it was not very prince-like to have a toddler paw at his face, but Zuko always made an exception for her.

Perhaps he would make an exception for her when he sees her.

(The Avatar was a child. That changed nothing.)

She does brave Ba Sing Se once to visit the tea chop. Uncle's tea brews turned out to make her too sensitive to elements (oh joy) and she leaves behind a note for Zuko, writing it down in English and hope that he understood.

(It's odd to see him so much taller and muscular now, and with that scar. His voice is deeper. But the black hair and gold eyes hasn't changed.

Azula is probably the same. She wouldn't know, she couldn't bring herself to try to talk to them face-to-face.

Something in her burns with shame.)

Five years. While there's a war, Emi Lee sits down and teaches children how to write their language with mud and sticks, or in snow and fingertips. She teaches them about money, how it's used and how it should be used when you're travelling or when you wanted to make more. She'd try to teach them how to fight, she she gets winded too quickly, so she instead tries to teach them war tactics Azula teaches her. She heals people with waterbending, and learned how to use her bloodbending when someone stupidly yanked out an arrow that went through a major artery. In exchange, she learns the food, the dance, the embroidery of their region. She learns about their people and their culture, their ideals. She gains trust.

While there's a war, Emi Lee was preparing for peace.

How many times had she helped innocents escape from monsters wars created? When technology wasn't so advanced, when culture has something about honor, when war had gone too long, atrocities are committed then written off, people stay silent and those who voice out the truth are beaten and killed.

Emi Lee's hands are graceful and unhesitant when she's bending water, fire and earth, but they shake a little as she'd write down the stories of bitter experiences she'd hear from man and woman, elderly, adult and child, fire, water, earth, non-bender, _people_. Her hands are ink-stained from transcribing the full, uncensored truth of suffering, while her father's was stained with blood in his desire for power and victory.

She can't do anything as she is, and all she can make up for that was being worth something in the future.

By the time Zuko was coronated as Fire Lord, Emi Lee had learned about the nations and its people beyond the textbooks, learned of acts beyond the pale, and noted that her worth politically is now greater. Azula was rumored to be MIA (what?!) and she's the missing, probably sane, princess.

She doesn't have an excuse to avoid them anymore.

Plus, something happened to her sister. She needs to know.

A figure is curled up in the darkness, waiting.

Knock, knock, knock.

Someone pulls off the sliding door by the hinges. The entrance was probably as old as the tribal era of firebenders they descended from, but whatever! The wooden door is dropped, shattering on the dirt in a cloud of dust and moldy wood while the intruder jumps down.

She looks at him in annoyance. "Ever heard of being subtle?"

Zuko shrugs. "I got your message."

They look at each other, taking in the difference of them now and the ones they remembered.

"You've grown."

"So have you."

"You don't stutter or talk like a baby anymore." He noted.

She averts her eyes. "Have I?" She says thoughtfully. She truly hadn't noticed. Guess actually needing to socialize while traveling helped. "You look more confident now."

"I don't feel like it," he easily admits. _"I missed you,_ " he says, with a weird stilted accent.

She blinks, shocked. "Wow, is this what happens when you share joint custody with Katara three children?" She utters, giving him a disbelieving look. Making him talk about feeling used to be feat akin to pulling out teeth but now he's doing it without manipulation on her part.

He...he's really grown up.

 _"I miss you too!"_ She says in English, a little teary eyed. He doesn't call her a crybaby. Odd.

Zuko crouched down and hugs her for the first time in years. She's not crying. She's not.

She hugs him as hard as she can and he laughs a little.

_"Let's go home, Emily."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is where she's gets found by Azula :3
> 
> Even though I'm writing a bunch of routes for her, the ending is ultimately the same.


	3. Bread-Throwing Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tropes: Sister vs. Sister confrontation, Special Snowflake qualities like always winning.
> 
> Warning at the start: Animal companion getting injured and left for dead, implied/referenced murders (accidental and on purpose), yer good ole manipulation.
> 
> Warning at the end: MORE ABUSE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting in the drafts for the longest time.
> 
> Since, August.
> 
> Oof.

Emi Lee has always thought of firebenders as sunflowers.

Once someone grasps of that warmth within them, the more they access it, the more they become connected to the spirits that blessed them with it. Namely, the dragon god thing that she couldn't be bothered with remembering after quizzes and exams.

Which was also the _sun,_ somehow.

Was this an actual thing in the series?

Whatever.

So after firebenders got their whole inner flame thing down, they inadvertently get cursed with the habit of waking up with the sun.

Emi, a lover of sleeping in, loathes it.

 _Why_ , for the love of God, is she forced to go with that bullshit even when her firebending is so weak, she has to borrow fuckin g flames because she can't produce--

Anyway! Sunflowers. They all get that second sense for knowing where the sun is positioned at because of it. Enough that she's familiar with the positions of the sun and the corresponding hour of the day.

For waterbenders, they're moon flowers that bloom sweetly under the gentle moonbeams. "Savages" get stronger especially under the full moon, and a little bit lethargic during the new moon.

In short, becoming a waterbender and a firebender?

When a bright, sunny day and a full moon happens in the same 24 hours?

It's like being sleepy, but being unable to sleep because you made the mistake of drinking a few shots of espresso, thinking it will make the sleepiness go away.

Of course, the day after that is when she encountered _Azula_ of all people.

Joy.

One of the times Azula and Emi Lee has gotten along was when they bonded over their torture of animals.

Azula had known that Emi Lee is actually trying to save Zuko's little pets, but it's also because Emi Lee is actually a mean little girl and wanted to extrapolate their suffering and keep harassing them until the end of their lives. Truly, their little sister's mind was on the right track, but Azula also had a point to make in killing a couple of his pets whenever Emi Lee had successfully trained the pet into fleeing or flailing.

(Her little prank with the dog was hilarious for everyone but Zuko.

The dog had startled so badly at the sight of bread the mutt had scratched him.

Azula had put it down in a bout of protectiveness than glee.

Both girls are scolded severely.)

Azula and Emi Lee were both the kind of girl whose actions and thinking are based on long term.

One of them was smart.

The smart one does _not_ have a reputation of scaring animals away by throwing bread.

When Azula partakes on hunting down the Avatar, she did not expect to find her sister just because Ty Lee had been curious about the rumored bread throwing spirits around the more famished colonies. Obviously it was a rumor made in good humor, but they actually saw a short figure the Avatar's age on a catgator and threw bread at some homeless, bumbling fools.

Amber eyes met.

Both widened.

There are some things you need to know about this situation:

Azula has been trained rigorously and had war mounts made to match the Avatar's bison. She had once beaten her father during a sparring match, but never did it again when it made the Fire Lord furious.

Emi Lee had been on the run for a lot longer than that, learned to avoid people who sought to find and put her head in a basket, and trained her catgator to be way faster.

It's a battle of preparations.

Or chance.

Their little pets can run only for so long.

Azula's cute little girl group had mounts that are trained to be able to run for a long, long while but theirs aren't exactly as agile and flexible. So they were forced to chase the youngest princess who still had a bounty on her head.

One of her friends had deadly aim and had disabled the catgator at one point. The catgator's burden spilled over the hardened soil. Food, barrels of water, medicine, her little knick knacks, even her damn _medicine_. Emi Lee's fury and panic helped her muster enough energy to bloodbend Mai into disabling the one in the braids.

Emi Lee dodged the plume of fire aimed for her legs and sees her older sibling smiling brightly, with interest glimmering in her eyes.

Now, it's two firebenders fighting. One was someone who has learned and mastered enough forms and can spit out blue flame with ease, the other has weaker yellow flames used sparsely, often flickering back to red.

"You fight like Uncle, dear sister. Learned a few tricks from savages?"

Emi Lee breathelessly laughed at the not-so-subtle jab at Iroh. "I can teach you if you want."

The good thing about Azula is that she loathed unnecessary deaths. A waste of human resource, they'd both agreed. So their short-lived fight didn't hurt any people or burn any of the very flammable things, unlike their stupid soldiers.

While Azula and Zuko can generate huge walls of flames, Emi Lee's firebending is so weak, she can only generate a weak candle and imitate the forms in the waterbending scrolls to generate flames from those flames. Only _children_ need assistance to keep their flame alive. Which was why Ozai had been so furious.

Emi kept dodging, backing away, _running_ away. Azula keeps up the chase.

"Why don't you use your little trick on me, baby sister?" Azula goaded. Prodded.

_You can't control multiple people at once, can you?_

Sweat trickled at the back of Emi's neck. It's difficult bending two elements at the same time, and especially taxing when it's for two very different purposes. "I know you don't like being controlled. I'm not going to do something you don't want."

_I mean, you don't even bother trying to think too hard on the way Father is controlling you._

_It's sad that you think he'll have use for you for a long time._

Emi Lee can feel, rather than hear, everyone's heartbeat. The way their blood rushed in their veins during their pursuit, in the heat of battle.

Ozai has sent multiple men after her for too many years, for too long for Emi Lee to not have practiced her bloodbending enough to avoid accidentally killing people after her.

While Emi's flames have turned red, Azula's only grew stronger and flared into an azure.

"Very pretty flames, sis." Emi Lee panted.

They both knew she was at the end of her rope.

Azula, ensured in her victory, takes a step forward to swing a kick--

And promptly gets completely frozen over.

Emi Lee cackled. "Really, you just _had_ to step all over my stuff?" She runs her hand over her face, then her scalp.

Dammit, this entire thing took her out.

It took Emi Lee a whole journey to figure out how to freeze _sludge_ with enough water, and waterbenders have a reputation of controlling water not the big question mark between earth and water.

Then, with a bit of earthbending, creates a little cuff over her older sister's hands, as well as her entourage's. She would've done it earlier, but she didn't want to reveal her hand so soon, not when they already knew about the bloodbending bit.

"I give you three bad fates right now." Emi Lee started. "One, removing your hands, Earth Kingdom style. Two, give your a heart attack. Three, use the fluids of your body to make you drown. And I have _plenty_ experience with that."

It's pretty fucking hilarious how the other two girls are looking at her the same way people looked at Zuko and Azula. One is a traitor, another is a psycho dictator, the youngest a murderer.

Your typical royal family drama.

She rolled her eyes. "Find Zuzu, 'Zula. The I'll willingly come with you."

Emi Lee would have kissed her on the cheek if Azula didn't look like she was gonna bite her face off the second she gets any closer. Or was already planning how to break out of cuffs.

So instead, Emi Lee uses a but more earthbending to push her salvageable stuff towards her, then left.

Of course, Azula has to use Zuko for psychological warfare. And twisted her words enough that the "hunt Emi Lee down" had sounded more like "she visited me and talked to me, but she didn't even try to find you in all these years of your exile hmmmm?"

Emi Lee had to clean up the misunderstandings.

For that, Emi Lee had created a little bump in the sand to make her trip.

Yes, she's a little spiteful.

Somehow the beach episode now has an added content to two sisters play fighting a tad bit too rough and Zuko once again trying to mediate.

Emi Lee just laughed, healing their bruises with seawater she purified. (Fucking ironic that she's prodigious in waterbending to the point she can separate water and salt.) "Just like old times, amiright?"

Azula smacks her hand off when it was her turn.

Emi Lee smacks her right back.

In flash, Zuko ends up holding their shoulders (so they won't jump at each other and start another cat fight) and firmly commands, "Stop. Just let her heal you. You're acting like _children_."

"We're just living a childhood we never had!" Emi Lee dramatically cried. Azula hid a laugh. (Yes she did, Emi Lee knows her too well to not know that little muscle spasm she tries so hard to suppress.)

In the end, they trashed someone's frat party.

Like old times.

Because Emi Lee didn't want to announce her leave, she instead left a note, and was gone with the wind.

The first time Emi Lee proposed a coupe, she got smacked for it.

She doesn't remember yet, she knew nothing yet too much, and it's the same even after she _did_.

The woman who birthed her was furious, but all she can see was the fear in it.

All she wanted was Azula on her throne, Zuko a General and her advisor, and Emi Lee their spy on the inside than a bargaining chip.

All she wanted is Father to stop playing with her favorite siblings in this world because she knew they all deserved better. All she wanted is for Mother to stop fearing Azula, because Emi Lee knew Azula is not Ozai, is better than Ozai, will be a better ruler than Ozai.

Azula is too smart to become someone like Father.

Emi Lee will try to protest, but she'll get slapped again, and Ursa will stress to her that those thoughts shouldn't be spoken, that nothing she spoke of is an option unless her siblings _wanted it._

Only then had Emi Lee had a slight idea on the full extent of _hurt_ Ozai had inflicted on her family.

Ursa kept whispering to her warnings and failures and consequences, the kind of voice that Azula wouldn't listen to when she'd get scolded about throwing bread at ducks. Perhaps for good reason, because one day, Emi Lee steps out of the palace, a home that felt too cold for a place that was supposed to be warm, with one thought in her mind:

_You can't do anything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever someone asks Emi Lee how she's able to bend multiple elements, she lobs Atomic Theory at their heads and gpes full science on them to avoid talk on spirits. Because spirit stuff is too wacky for her to have a aolid explanation on even if she is a bit more sensitive to the Spirit World because of the whole reincarnating bit.


End file.
